to survive. But if we choose love, it’ll be a risky, bumpy ride. Death may find us before it’s time, but it will have been worth it,” Jacob reasoned.
“Like when I tried swimming in the river. I didn’t know how, but I really, really wanted to learn. I almost drowned, but then I got the hang of it.”
“Exactly, Moses. You can’t learn to swim unless you’re willing to risk drowning. Keeping your distance from water might keep you safe for a while, but it also keeps you far away from the things that are really worth it.”
Moses pondered everything in the dark. He thought his brother was the smartest person on earth. Often he had overheard teachers tell their parents how bright Jacob was. Jacob liked to read their father’s books and stay up listening to the adults talking about politics, literature, or the theater. “You’re really smart,” was all he could think to say.
Jacob chuckled. Intelligence seemed rather irrelevant in the world they were now living in. He somehow understood that what really made the world go round was power and violence. “Let’s go to sleep. Tomorrow will be a really long day, and we’ll have to get back in that hole.”
“Again?” Moses complained.
“’Fraid so.”
“We’re a lot closer to Mother and Father now, aren’t we?”
“Nothing’s going to stop us from seeing them again, I already promised you, and—”
“A Stein never breaks a promise,” Moses finished. It had been their father’s refrain.
Silence settled between them, and Jacob was left alone with his thoughts. A family was much more than a group of people united by blood. More than anything, it was the thin thread that kept the present linked to the past. Memories and memory itself kept both worlds together, which is why he and Moses had to keep remembering. As long as they did, Aunt Judith would still be alive and their parents would always be with them. Jacob let his quiet tears fall to dry on the pillow. He tried to imagine what had gone through his aunt’s mind as she plummeted from the window to the courtyard below. Had she been scared? Of course she had, but he was sure that, at least for a fraction of a second, she had thought about them, about how she had left them alone and had not kept her promise. A Stein never breaks a promise, he thought, as sleep loosened the grip on his consciousness. He repeated the phrase until words could no longer penetrate the thin veil of darkness, and he slept.
Chapter 10
Artenay
July 20, 1942
The night passed too quickly. Before light began to turn the sky, the boys found themselves once again hidden in the false floor of the Citroën, heading toward Nouan-le-Fuzelier. Leduc hummed through his repertoire of songs while Jacob and Moses felt every dip and pothole in the back road that Leduc had taken to avoid most of the checkpoints and curious looks. A few hours in, in the middle of a forest, he slowed down, pulled off onto a lane that led into a field, and let the boys out to have breakfast.
Moses unfolded himself from the back of the van first and promptly vomited on the grass. Jacob rubbed his brother’s back until the nausea passed and Moses could stand up again.
“Do we really have to ride in the compartment the whole time? Yesterday it was only ’til we got farther outside of Paris,” Jacob asked, frustrated.
“The priest told me last night that they’re even stricter at the checkpoints now. In the past few weeks, several Allied pilots have been shot down in the area, and the Germans are looking for them. There’s a whole Resistance network helping them escape. We’re not part of the partisans, but the gendarmes and Nazi soldiers are combing the countryside trying to flush them out,” Leduc explained, folding some of the leftover meat from the night before into some bread.
“But we aren’t pilots. You could tell the soldiers at the checkpoints that we’re your nephews, and . . .”
Leduc frowned. The children were a nuisance, and the boy was being ungrateful. Leduc was risking his life to help them, but he swallowed back his comments and focused on his sandwich. There was less and less food with each passing day. His excursions into the countryside at least provided him with a bit more variety than he usually got in the city.
“I’d rather not run that risk. Perhaps it would be better if I dropped you off in